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66. U.S. Navy Search & Rescue, Leadership, & Fire Service Leadership Consulting - CMDCM (ret) Flip Griffin
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In Episode 66 , Matt sits down with Flip Griffin. Flip’s journey spans from Navy corpsman to Search and Rescue professional, ultimately serving as a Command Master Chief—one of the highest enlisted leadership roles in the Navy—before transitioning into fire service leadership consulting.
This conversation dives into the realities of Naval Search and Rescue, the scope of military medical and aviation support, and the leadership responsibilities that come with operating in complex, mission-driven environments. Flip shares how his experiences shaped his leadership philosophy, emphasizing the critical role of communication, accountability, and structured systems in building effective teams.
Matt and Flip also explore the transition from military service to consulting, discussing the creation of leadership frameworks and how those principles apply directly to the fire service. From generational challenges to organizational culture, this episode provides actionable insights for leaders at every level.
Whether you’re in the fire service, military, or leading in any capacity, this episode offers practical takeaways on building stronger systems, developing people, and leading with purpose.
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of the Fire Dog Podcast is supported by AOS Services, the one-stop shop for firefighting equipment compliance built for the DoD. At AOS Services, they help military fire departments stay mission-ready with customized programs that bundle everything from SCBAs and compressors to hoses, ladders, PPE care, rescue gear, and more. Their teams work worldwide, so whether you're stateside or overseas, they've got you covered.
00:00:21
Speaker
For all your firefighting equipment compliance needs, visit aosservicesinc.com to learn more. This episode of Fire Dog Podcast is supported by Roll Call Coins, founded by a 24-year Air Force firefighter veteran. They understand that a coin represents more than just an event. It represents a story.
00:00:38
Speaker
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Guest Introduction: Flip Griffin
00:00:56
Speaker
stack.
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Speaker
This is the Fire Dog Podcast.
00:01:11
Speaker
Welcome, my name is Matt Wilson and thank you for listening to episode 66 of the Fire Dog Podcast. In this episode, I sit down with a guest whose career spans military medicine, naval search and rescue and leadership at the highest levels of the Navy enlisted force as a command master chief. From his early days as a corpsman to his time in search and rescue and eventual transition into fire service leadership consulting, Flip bring brings a perspective shaped by experience, service, and an understanding of what it means to lead in high stakes environments. Throughout the conversation, we dive into his experience with the Navy, dive into several leadership topics and discuss his experience in leadership consulting.
00:01:48
Speaker
Flip shares lessons learned along the way, highlighting the importance of communication, building accountability systems, and developing leaders who can adapt to changing generations and expectations. We also explore what it takes to build strong organizational culture and why policies are important in creating organizations that both function and thrive. Whether you're in the fire service, the military, or any leadership position, there are practical takeaways in this episode that you can immediately apply.
Career Transition and Lessons
00:02:14
Speaker
It is my pleasure to welcome to the podcast, Flip Griffin.
00:02:18
Speaker
Well, Flip, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you. Thanks, man. I appreciate it be here. Really excited to to talk to you guys and ah be ah be a be one more in the long line of like pretty cool guests that you've had. I've seen some stuff over the over the course of the few weeks once we once we said we were going to do this. I went went you know did really deep dived and pretty good, man. Really awesome stuff that you do. Great questions and and great guests coming on and giving a great perspective.
00:02:45
Speaker
I appreciate that. And, you know, just just trying to get out of the guests whatever I think listeners or whatever we think listeners want to hear, you know. And i I've looked back at some of those episodes and sometimes I think like, man, I was i was grilling them pretty hard. You know, I've got to feel that a little bit. um I've adjusted my approach just a bit over the over the years, like...
00:03:05
Speaker
to try to make it more welcoming. You know, there's a few times where I've had guests reach back to me like, man, I didn't feel good about that. Like, oh, that's on me. You know, in my head, I'm oh, that's on me. I got to adjust the approach. But I appreciate that feedback. That's good feedback. Yeah, no worries, man.
00:03:18
Speaker
All good. Well, Flip, you you reached out to us. um And I appreciate you doing that. I look through your stuff. You you sent me a few things. And then I i actually listened to a couple podcasts or one podcast that you did.
00:03:29
Speaker
recently just to try to get an idea like, you know, what you, who you are and what you do and what you've done. Cause it's just a bit of a unique guest for us. We, as you've probably noticed in our episodes, we highlight a lot of, we focus on the Air Force domain, you know, and fire service within the Air Force. And there's, there's a smattering of others that I've talked to that are not federally affiliated, but I don't think we've ever talked to anybody affiliated with the Navy. We've had a few Marine Corps,
00:03:59
Speaker
So it's cool that you reached out to us and you like have this connection with the fire service too, which is awesome, but not through your
Experience with Fire and EMS
00:04:08
Speaker
naval experience. and then you But through your naval experience, you also have...
00:04:12
Speaker
some like paramedicine or, you know, you're a corpsman. So you have the medical side the house. So you understand that. So, and then the search and rescue, of course, and there's some listeners out there. There's some folks within the Air Force enterprise and the fire service that maybe don't do the kind of search and rescue you did, but have some USAR experience. So really yeah kind of like affiliated, not affiliated, you know, unique perspective. So look forward to picking your brain.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Honestly, that's one of the things that I i kind of... ah so i've So I guess i can probably just lighten a little bit of the listeners to it.
00:04:48
Speaker
The federal... like And you know this, right? Federal fire is... It's a big it's big, right? like it's It's really big in that like not only do... you know Whether it's crash and salvage for you know all the Air Force bases and naval aviation bases and army... like It's just...
00:05:04
Speaker
People don't realize how big that service is and how many, you know, at every base, pretty much most every base you go to in the military period has, you know, and and they know this, right? Because obviously you guys are focusing on it. But for me, the interesting part was I never thought I was going to be fire adjacent my whole entire
Federal Fire Services Scale
00:05:23
Speaker
career. But that's what ended up happening. And and you know this as well. Most people do. You know, back 20 years ago when I was riding in ambulance boxes,
00:05:31
Speaker
Like we weren't part of, you know, I stayed over at fire houses, right? We were running calls with them all the time. Like it was that way, but we didn't have the, you know, the, the, the mixing and the melding that we do now with everybody, you know, most paramedics, most services, most counties are, you know, they're combining everything, you know? So back then it was separate. Most, a lot were separate. So like, that's how we knew,
00:05:55
Speaker
you know And then over the course of my career, almost – this is – I'm really proud of this, though, that almost every single place I was working with fire and EMS local, every single place we've gone to. So I did i wasn't expecting it. you know But even over in Japan or or you know in the Middle East and stuff, where you know because you are the medic and because we are that way. And then for all your Air Force listeners, I would i would say, too, just so we know – or they know, I guess, um search and rescue corpsmen. So just like your PJs, except you guys did a little bit more with special operations. We didn't do a little bit more with like home-based stuff. So we had some guys do special ops and do things. And I worked with your guys down in Kadena and we'll get into that story. But I love just, it's it's been a great experience kind of in doing all this for for the past X amount of years I got to and almost ah you know almost a crime. Like i I got to do all this cool shit for all this time. So, but it's been fun. It's been a lot of fun.
00:06:47
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it is cool. You know, you kind of, and I'm sure you have a great perspective now that you've crossed over. You've retired in 2019. I don't want to take away your talking points, you know, story, but you've been out of it. And so you probably had that time to
Military Career Reflections
00:06:59
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reflect on and maybe miss a little bit of that military service because what an awesome opportunity we have.
00:07:05
Speaker
is is military members to get paid to do the things that we do. you know yeah In your case with search and rescue and being a corpsman, going Japan, you know same thing for us, being able to travel the world and be firefighters in different places. you know we We go into the Middle East and interact in that environment and have to contend with different environments and different cultures and different ways of approaching patients and same thing in Europe, different trucks, yeah different lights. The lights are blue, you know, like just that yeah helmets are smaller. Helmets are different. You know, they use different SCBAs. It's just, uh, when you like, when you take a step back and look at it from that perspective, just what an awesome opportunity we have. And I, I, I try to not take that for granted and it's easy to, when you're in the position, but i always try to reflect on like what an awesome opportunity it is be, uh,
00:07:57
Speaker
a public servant in the military capacity, you know, and then be able to deploy and and do
Transition to Civilian Life
00:08:02
Speaker
those kinds of things too. So. yeah Yeah, pretty neat. Again, and and when you don't expect it, like I didn't expect to get back into FIRE, and we'll get into how kind of I did, but like i but then look, when I did, you you you mentioned like in 19, like I retired in 19, I took all that time, like of course I was trying to go find you know work to do and things like that in that sense, but like just the calling came back and I i kind of came back if I like to tell you to my roots, right? Like came back to yeah EMS, came back to FIRE, came back to the The blue collar, gritty kind of people that, you know, I grew up with all the time. And that's what's natural to me. And now just trying to help them. I mean, I know we'll get into that later, but just just trying to be there and and hearing what's going on, you know, and and and like you said, like, I will say in 19 when I retired, you know, 20 changed the game.
00:08:52
Speaker
for everybody right like covid hit like i'm telling talking to my best friends and they're like you know dude we can't leave the ship we're in a hotel and then we have to like just craziness had happened and i didn't experience any so i tell people all the time i'm like my war and all of our wars ended right in in you know 2019 2020 whatever like it was it was different. and And then the change now, just in four years, like normally you don't have that big a change, but it's the cycle, you know, it's the cycle of ramping up and, oh, we've got too many. And now we're back into this whole cycle again. So it's it's interesting. and And like you said, it's been fun. It's been an absolute blast for everything that I've done. And now still just having a good time again, know, refound my purpose and that's good. So all all fun.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah. i look forward to talking to you about how you got reconnected with the fire service and And, you know, how you're connected now, what you do for the fire service. I look forward to having that conversation with you. Yeah, man, what a paradigm shift it was in the 2020 timeframe. And we're in like this collectively is a department of war. Now we're in this um identity crisis kind of, I mean, we're still a capable military, but it's like, what do we do? You know, like, what am I here for? And how are we going to contend with a peer adversary? And yeah, it ebbs and flows and,
00:10:09
Speaker
So anyways, I could talk about that all day. I enjoy having that kind of conversation. yeah I want to highlight you. let's I want to allow you to introduce yourself. We've talked a lot about you know your background a little bit, but just to give you the stage, tell the listeners who you are, maybe where you're from. um And then after that, I want to kind of hit on your naval experience um sure in a little bit more depth. Sure.
00:10:30
Speaker
Sure, absolutely. So born and raised Buffalo, New York. um So I'm a diehard Bills fan, a diehard Sabres fan at heart, and lot of heartbreak and a lot of big scabs that we have, you know, for Buffalo people. so And I know about snow, so that's good too. But I went to college for a year and just decided it um I was going for to play soccer and track, and it just didn't didn't work out. it wasn't School wasn't for me, like a lot of kind
Early Navy Experiences
00:10:54
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of...
00:10:54
Speaker
you know, enlisted people start off that just wasn't for me at that time. And so did the year at college and then was like, you know what, I'm going to go in So went in and I originally actually was signed up for the Coast Guard, blew my knee out beforehand. And they were like, nah, we're not, we're not taking anybody that's, that's broke. So ended up doing the Navy piece. And then coming in and luckily got, I was over six, um six, two, no acne, didn't wear glasses at the time. So they were like, Hey, you want to come and do the presidential honor guard thing? And So right out of boot camp, I got picked up to go do the presidential honor guard. And that was for Clinton's second term. Like that was that timeframe was that. So really learned a lot, like almost was ruined a little bit because you meet all these generals and all these high ranking people. And they're just normal people. Like what you, what I didn't realize is, you know,
00:11:41
Speaker
any service member, young service members who never met someone high ranking, you kind of put them on that pedestal. And so that was like my first. So for them, they were debunking, you know, the the leadership myths like this, you know, these, these generals. air And in fact, was an Air Force general, I'll be honest with you, we're on a um a funeral, ah like a full honors, and they were there too. I forgot who it was from. Maybe it was Shally Catchy-Ele's retirement.
00:12:06
Speaker
And this Air Force General, because I'll remember it distinctly, bro. You guys have, you're the only one. We have like scrambled eggs on the front. You guys have this badass like, you know, thunder, thunder and lightning stuff that's on there. You know, the general's helmets or the general's ah covers.
00:12:21
Speaker
And so I just but he was like, man, we we all put our he said it literally. he's like, we all we all put our pants on the same way. And like, you know, I'm an And like hearing this, of course, you know, you're like, whoa, you know, but it was kind of the the the awakening, I think, for me. And this is brand new. And now I'll admit.
00:12:39
Speaker
I didn't get it. I went through that. I went to Bethesda Naval Hospital, you know, just being stupid as a young kid, just trying to figure it all out. You know, it's it's our college those years, you know, it's our four years of college those times.
00:12:51
Speaker
But then decided, you know, they're like, what do you want to do with your life? And I was like, well, I'm going to pick something. And honestly, man, it was 8401. It was the first naval enlisted classification code that was there. And I'm like, what's search and rescue? And and I had wanted to do other things before kind of in that world. And I just never got to. So like,
00:13:08
Speaker
I had the opportunity and was like, let me go search and rescue. And so went down to Eric's school, did all that. Back then it was more OJT to learn how to to be there. Like you had to go to the initial school, but now they have a complete and total pipeline and everything else that, you know pretty dedicated.
Post-9/11 SAR Evolution
00:13:23
Speaker
um but got to go do search and rescue and that went to puerto rico first for it and that was i mean again eye-opening just fun but just you know 24 7 fun we worked in the yeah ah er most of us had worked like yeah ah er or or someplace else in aviation medicine and then got to you know got to got to go off also with with the squadron it was there and kind of do stuff and Honestly, man, like our world changed. Like, obviously, you know, this too, right? Oh, one happened and then everything changed in a one. So, you know, we were all heightened up and we're all doing things. And the nice part about our job scope was they were so small and we didn't, we weren't really known. So we were actually downsizing our units.
00:14:05
Speaker
up until that point and then the army came calling like in 05 and said hey we can't do this anymore on the ground stuff we need your guys help can you guys do medevac stuff so we got to you know that kind of reinvigorated us and then the whole then the fleet was like dude we want these guys kind of on the carriers so they can do you know the medevac things on the carriers and support our soft guys and everything else and so Honestly, from the time, and we were all part of it, because we were all, we didn't, we' it was a dead-end job scope, to be honest with you, to some degree. Like, everybody was like, you get to a certain point, and then you had to move on.
00:14:39
Speaker
And this kind of opened it up for us. And what ended up happening is, is with 100 or so men and women in the in the scope, we ended up promoting a lot of people really quickly to the next level, to like the E7 and above level. And that was, ah that's not good either for a small group, because we were we were letting people go. and so Otherwise, a bunch of new places opened up, the job scoped opened up, and just being in search and rescue was so much fun just to do things. And even like when I went to Japan, nobody was there. I just set the whole program up for myself. Like we didn't have supplies. People didn't even know what we we could do. so you had to be this like salesman of sorts, which was really weird because you think like, oh, no, dude, we're... You know, like, but people were like, I don't, what what can you do? and I'm like, oh shit, like, you know, like full paramedicine by myself if I need to. like And they're like, oh, that's that's a capability we haven't had before. And I'm like, yeah, here we go. Let's do this, you know?
00:15:35
Speaker
So that was, again, it it was tough in the sense of like, from a structured standpoint, because you're young, you just want to do the job. And everybody, like even young firefighters, right? You just want to, they recruited, we we recruit them to, you know, carry the baby out of the burning building.
00:15:50
Speaker
And you don't get to do that all the time. In fact, most of the time you don't. Like if you ever get one of those, it's probably a very much rarity that you're gonna. But yet we have to train to that, right? It's the kind of quiet paradox we live in this rescue world of I want to use every skill set I have, but...
00:16:07
Speaker
damn, i I don't want to see people in that position, right? Like you don't want to, you don't want to have to.
Fukushima Disaster Response
00:16:12
Speaker
So, um but it was good. Like, again, once I picked up steam, i went to Japan, had a great time in Japan, got to do things left just after the Fukushima happened. So I got a phone call when it happened back in, I was in Pensacola at the time. They're like, Hey man, you were just here, you know, all these capabilities.
00:16:30
Speaker
you know, what are your, what's your suggestion? So I got to, I get to help staff wise a little bit. And but it was my guys, you know, my team, I just left that was doing most of all that meta medical evacuation and flying through the plume cloud, you know all the shit that was happening.
00:16:44
Speaker
So that was a lot of, I mean, again, just a different side of it all seeing it, you know, I had deployed a couple of times. I had been with the, you know, over there and we deployed a bunch of times to the South, South Pacific, but like, that was like, holy shit. so those guys went through some stuff, you know, so,
00:16:59
Speaker
um But all fun. I would i would say like if you looked at it all, and then you get to a certain point where your staff and you're trying to help out you know the new guys. and i helped create you know we We all helped create the pipeline to make it better for the people than you know that we we left it to. And I would say now like I'm really proud of all the groups There's probably, when you look at tiers, there was this group that was right before me, there was my group, and then there was like the next group after us. And I'd say we probably made the most change within the department. We were doing the more more than anyone else had done in our business.
00:17:33
Speaker
job scope and then just the change wise to make it something more permanent, make it align with, because we were all by ourselves. We weren't, we couldn't classify ourselves as like combat medics. We couldn't classify ourselves as PJs. We couldn't classify ourselves like seal saw, like it was different. So we had to be able to, all right, let's find our own little niche here of what we could do. And and so it ended up being good. And now it's obviously like, you know, high level transport and, and, you know, point of injury care stuff. But,
00:18:01
Speaker
you know, we're, we're right there with anybody else, which I'm really proud of, you know, to this day. So. That's awesome, man. Thank you for walking us through that journey. I'm, you know, I think you've alluded to it quite a bit when you were speaking. What, what,
00:18:15
Speaker
is the scope. So you're paramedic equivalent. Yep. And how how are you similar to pararescue? How are you different? So yeah do you do you go on like a a carrier? Are you assigned to a
SAR Corpsmen Challenges
00:18:28
Speaker
ship? you assigned to a naval air station? you go out if a plane goes down? like you know What's the origin of that ship?
00:18:34
Speaker
MOS, AFSC. I don't know what you guys call it in the Navy. I can't remember. We called it – well, it used to be called NECs. Now there's something else. I can't remember what they're called now. But the 8401 was that portion of it. That numerical identifier. Yeah, yeah. it was the Honestly, it was 01. So it was the first one on the 8401. Oh, that's easy. oh one Right. so it was the first So I joke, but the truth was – You picked the first one saw. Yeah, well, sort of, right? Like they're like – Like, honestly, like, so when I was at Bethesda, worked on labor and delivery before. Like, i was a normal corpsman, chose to go corpsman after the guard, go to Bethesda. And then there, they're, you know, they're trying to sell you to be a tech of some kind, right? But at Bethesda...
00:19:16
Speaker
these cardiovascular techs, like they were moonlighting on the weekends and they're making like, you know, and I was like, Oh, maybe I should go do that. And I was like, oh I'm not that smart to be, a to be a cardiovascular tech. I'm like, let me go do this search and rescue thing. Right. Like if you ain't like, you know how it is. If you yes you're not smart, you're strong. for yeah and clinical medicine Yeah. And if you're not smart, you're strong. So, okay. I can, I can deal with that. Right. You know, this is long one of the things we talked about at rescue swimmer school all the time, but,
00:19:42
Speaker
So for us at the time, all we were were so were at SAR stations. So we had places like Maine and Keflavik was open and like Meridian, Puerto Rico, Cuba. At the time, it was like Fallon, Whidbey Island and in Washington State, China Lake, all these places. And then all of a sudden they shut them all down.
00:20:05
Speaker
So like RNEC had all these people and literally the moment that they shut them all down and took those billets away and and places closed, like Maine had closed as ah as a base, right? Brack had closed it and they were doing, they started to do all the joint stuff like where you are now. Like we didn't have, there wasn't joint at the time. It was, well, you all get learned.
00:20:24
Speaker
Well, all of a sudden it was like, hold on, we need you guys on the carriers. we were like, oh. And then, like, there was some soft, there was there was two squadrons, well, one squadron in San Diego, one squadron in Norfolk that were also supporting. They were kind of like the D160th of the Navy. So they were the HCSs. So those guys were doing stuff, special ops with all the SEALs, right, when it when they couldn't get kind of those sets. So we had these lead little pockets of places all the time. And then all of our Marine Corps stations. So that was the other thing, like Cherry Point, Yuma. those were
00:20:57
Speaker
We had those fully stocked with corpsmen with the Marine Corps. So like we knew there were good places to go. There were other places that didn't do a lot of work. But but for us to compare, i guess the best way to put this is, inbe go to flight mets right now as of now, they go to flight medic school. They still go through ah their own search and rescue corpsman school, which we did not have at the time. And so...
00:21:20
Speaker
The best way to put this is fully ACLS capable to do anything we could and but full paramedicine type of deal. Now they go in and then now they go through the paramedic program. So all that being able said. So the only difference is we didn't do dive and jump, but we would do repel.
00:21:38
Speaker
And then we could do some free fall. Like some of us could do rescues from our stuff where we're jumping out of the helos or whatever. But normally it was we were. We were the overground guys. Land-based. Yeah, we were land-based. So if there was something that was over, we would so we would send the swimmer. well So a normal crew for us, pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, rescue swimmer, and then corpsman if you had it. So that that way that would be our crew. So normally, like you said, crew chiefs putting people down in the water or down on land, we're we're dealing with the medicine piece as they come back up or if we were down there. So in that sense, kind of just like everything else. And then the war kicked off. We did a lot more, you know, like Kasevac stuff, point of injury care when we were in southern Iraq and and Kuwait.
00:22:21
Speaker
So again, and now today, same thing. They're a lot more about like long, they do a lot more about long-term stuff, like long, excuse me, long-term care and things like that. So they've evolved over time. We've gotten it more structured for them. I think for us, it was like you get 50 hours, now you're qualified in the aircraft.
00:22:38
Speaker
Now it's a lot different where they have a lot more, but, but so pretty close. So besides diving okay and and free fall, like parachuting, I think the similarities are pretty close after that. Okay.
00:22:50
Speaker
what about the What about combat training? you know If you're ground-based and you're being leveraged in Iraq and Afghanistan for that capability, that search and rescue capability, I know pararescue was leveraged pretty hard for yep for that in yeah Afghanistan specifically.
00:23:06
Speaker
You know, is is that yes what was in your scope of responsibility too? So we didn't. So for us, we were second level, ah you know, adjacent to that side. So some of them, and like if they win HCS or win that case, they absolutely did. And there was a few, probably 10 guys that that were in that, like Pup and Pollock and all those dudes. So, but I will say like on the other side of the house, though it was always like,
00:23:30
Speaker
we were there to do organic combat SAR for our carrier group. So and if you went on the carrier, you were there to do long-term medevac. You would do it off the fixed wings or you would do it off the helo squadron you were with.
00:23:42
Speaker
And then if you were there to support anyone else, you you could do like when 15 walked off, when that guy got thrown in a cage and set on fire by ISIS, like we were there supporting the evacuation ah you know, of the embassies and that kind of a sense of, of doing SAR and strip alert stuff for those. So we were, I mean, just call waiting in that sense, it was just the same thing, but most of our, he was the the good and bad, like our rescue swimmers and our, and our crew chiefs,
00:24:11
Speaker
When we would go to Fallon, we were set up for combat SAR or strike packages, if you will, for that. Not necessarily, we weren't door, we weren't busting down doors. We weren't supporting that way, any sense. Now, again, few guys had gone down that route and that, but mostly it was organic things waiting. And luckily you don't lose too many aircraft. So we weren't, you know, you're not entirely busy. So then the rest of it was, hey, like if you're on a carrier, you were probably...
00:24:36
Speaker
You were probably first assist with the surgeon so you can get your hands dirty all the time. I was that for for mine. You were probably senior, so you were probably in the air crew shop, you know, leading kind of from ah from a senior leadership role in some capacity.
Leadership Journey and Mentorship
00:24:50
Speaker
And then if you were junior, you were just there, you know, and then medical readiness was our other side too. So like when we weren't doing all that, we were trying to make sure that everybody had their shots and all that other kind of stuff and kind of doing little. Yeah, I was just going to say how many people were coming to you on the ship. You know, hey, my I rolled my ankle and. yeah that kind of That's an easy one. you know i Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:09
Speaker
Well, cool. Yeah, I think that gives us a good idea, man. I appreciate you walking us through that and and providing all that perspective. I want to also highlight the fact that you were a Command Master Chief, which for us, I i think the equivalent would be...
00:25:23
Speaker
like command chief master sergeant. Yeah, it's your top guy. Yeah, your top. Were the senior listed leader, um representative for the commander of wherever you're assigned?
00:25:34
Speaker
yeah Tell us about that experience a little bit. did you think about that? So I i think... i go When I go back, and I say this to all new firefighters, and and because we're in the same, right? It's the same type of job, right? Same skill sets to some degree, and but yet the same brotherhood, sisterhood that you have right with in the fire service, youd same thing military-wise. I think it was E5 I got it. Like, I finally got it.
00:25:57
Speaker
Right. Like I understood. i i knew what, you know, to get ahead and to understand what everybody was trying to do. Finally, the the light bulb switched off from switched on for me.
00:26:09
Speaker
So at that point, I was like and and I had met some really great mentors, some really great master chiefs that were a part of really great leaders that I was a part of. And I was like, oh, I think maybe I want to do something like that. So I started just on my own with my peers. We had the I will tell you, man.
00:26:24
Speaker
for all my if if If Eric or or Nick is listening to this, I don't know if they will. like We had three E5s just running by ourselves, dude. like No oversight. like It was awesome. but You know what I mean? Dangerous and awesome. Totally dangerous, but also completely like we're just we're just three guys. like We weren't worrying about big-time stuff. We were this is the oddity about all of us, like any any of the special operations in, you know, whether you're the STS guys or whether you're CEO, you're all part of that JSOC world. Your money all came from all that new thing. Right. Terrorism kicked off. It was kind of a free bank account for everybody. but We weren't part of that. um Unfortunately, we were part of we were split between medical and aviation So, like, we were owned by some we were owned by medical, but we flew with aviation. So there was always this constant fight of who pays for what and blah, blah, blah. And different places utilize people different ways. But I'll say this. Like, once it got worked out...
00:27:24
Speaker
Again, i got it at E5, and then it just kind of took off for me. So a lot of things that happens in the Corman world is, you know, great skill sets, but, like, I couldn't take a test because the tests were about preventive medicine or they were about oncology. Like, they were about all stuff that – because you had to have this kind of all-encompassing test for everybody. right so we And we were so specific that search and rescue was never on a test because it wasn't there. But you tell me what the you know what the temperature of eggs should be served at or how many holes in a traditional Navy coffin. And that's the shit we had to ah apparently remember, right? Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
So it wasn't, we never did trauma medicine. and And if it was, it wasn't up to date. Because you know as well as I do, like medicine changed, that 20 years changed medicine, like trauma medicine.
00:28:12
Speaker
ah You know, like our outcomes were so much better, right? We were giving almost live plasma in the field type of deals, right? Like just the world was changing medicine-wise, but they weren't catching up with the
Leadership Aspirations
00:28:23
Speaker
tests. So most of us were like...
00:28:25
Speaker
This doesn't apply to us. I'd rather just work on. So finally that ended up happening. But I met those good leaders. And then I finally, I probably, when I was in E7, was like, man, I think want to be the E9. Like, I just wanted that. So I had a choice. I had a choice when I was at, in 15, I had a choice whether I wanted to go stay corpsman. and go that route to E9, you know, towards corpsman, or I wanted to stay operational. Because if I was going to stay corpsman, they're going to send me to a big hospital. And I didn't want a big hospital at all. So I chose to go command, got picked up for the command senior chief program. So our E8s can start off at that. And then, you know, you get a small command. That at E5 or E6 when you did that, when you made that transition?
00:29:06
Speaker
No, I made that transition at E8. E8, okay. So they give you choice in the Navy? They give you kind of a path? Yeah. so you can get to E7, and there are some command SEL billets for E7. There's not a lot of them at all. Yeah. But E8, they had the program, and they were just, honestly, they were building this program up at some point. Because most people, you made E8.
00:29:27
Speaker
you got to E nine and then you went command or whatever, but the program is set that they wanted to start to build those, those, those, uh, administrative leaders really. Right. Right. And and to go, so when you do take that path, you're, you're steering away from your functional responsibility and yeah towards leadership, man, that is a, that's a great thing. I've heard that the Navy does it. I think, I think I've heard the army does it too. The air force does not do that.
00:29:51
Speaker
And I think that we need to, um, So when you guys get to a certain point, de can you guys stay? You stay in your function your your functional lane of responsibility for the entirety of your career.
00:30:03
Speaker
And those those senior enlisted leader positions are um um side hustles, additional duties, if that makes sense. it's like a collateral duty. If you wanted to pursue that, you can. When you get to E9 and you talk about command chief, ah command master chief equivalent, you know, you're, you're pretty much at that point going to be away from the career field for the rest of your career. Right. But you know, if it's a first sergeant, i don't know if you guys have first sergeants, like the army has first sergeants. um But if it's a first sergeant, that's an additional duty. I step outside of my functional lane of responsibility for a few years, come back into it. Maybe, maybe I leave as an E seven, come back as an E eight.
00:30:42
Speaker
um So there's a little bit of a gap in understanding with that functional lane. So that I just, I think that we should be given a choice. just I think it would be better for continuity sake, you know, give people like, Hey, I want to take that. I'm, I'm strong administratively. Uh, you know, i work well with, with kernels and generals, et cetera. Let me take this path. Me, I'm stronger in the fire service. I'm stronger my functional lane. You know, i think that that's a great thing. So that's cool to hear.
00:31:12
Speaker
And the easiest way for us to, like, I'll use a squadron, for example, because it's the easiest. Like, you have a maintenance Master Chief E9 that's downstairs, and they are running operations, right? So anything maintenance-wise on there, they, you know, and and it's not hard. I was just discussing this with, I was at a fire department this week, and we were discussing operational and administrative chains of command and how if you don't,
00:31:39
Speaker
Like if you don't have those set where people know exactly how to route things through one or route things through the other, you can end up with a lot of clarity issues about, you know, how information is flowing. For us, it was like the maintenance master chief. If you had anything to do with maintenance, know,
00:31:56
Speaker
on any aircraft, that was his responsibility. You would, you would, but when it came to like the 24 other programs that we, every, you know, so, you know, PT program, you know, your sexual sapper programs, like all those things, those were run by the CMCs, right? So, and you can make that choice. And once you had the cookie or they call the cookie, that thing back there on my mug, like once you got that, you were command master chief,
00:32:19
Speaker
Forever. It has changed now. So anyone listens to this today is going to tell me, yes, you can go back and forth. they They just did a whole redo out it where we were taking, because what we were doing, and there was some good and bad to this, but they were taking people from like the sub community and it didn't matter or the surface community.
00:32:35
Speaker
And they'd go, hey, we need ah a new Master Chief over at one of the new squadrons. you get a sub guy all his life walking into, ah you know, a helo squadron. And you're like, okay, how's this going work out? Some of them worked great.
00:32:49
Speaker
Others were like, they you know, they wanted to bring what they learned in the sub community over or the surface community over. And that is not how aviation works, right? Aviation works a lot different. Because they're their own little, like you guys have too, right? If I if i talk to your STS guys, they they operate a certain way. You go back to medical, those dudes off but you know they ah they operate a certain way too. So we had the same problems. But for me, I i didn't want to i wanted to stay operational. I wanted to be a CMC. So I i i obviously got picked up for the program, which I was really excited for. went to command schools, all that kind of stuff. And then got VX-23 as my first duty station, which was the test and evaluation squadron in Pax River for all
Retirement and Family Priorities
00:33:29
Speaker
jets. So we owned from the F-35 to, ah you know, the Iron Eagle, which was the the drone that was there. Anything that was on a carrier jet related, it was ours. We owned that and we tested it.
00:33:41
Speaker
um which was great. We had 1,500 civilians and about 150 sailors and and officers with it. And so i was I was humbled and honored to get it. I was super excited to get that. I was really excited to get that and thought I was going to go more. and then we had a little bonus baby. And so it was ah it was a good thing and started life completely over, right? So I was like, you know, I had two daughters that were about to go through middle school at the time. So i was like, do I want to be? It was time to go. Yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah. Because they had made routes. We were in Pax River, Maryland, in Southern Maryland, just outside of D.C. And we had made some pretty significant routes, I think, that were there. And so it was like, what ah do I want to just I was going to be assigned at Norfolk. So now they're not going to move to Norfolk. So I was like, am i god I'm going to be that dad and that husband that drives home every Sunday. Right. Back up back north of the job.
00:34:34
Speaker
And it was tough, but, you know, i had done a lot. i had deployed a lot. And I was like, you know, i think for the family reasons wise, it's probably a good idea. So, but, but I had made it up, you know, made nine while I was there, was able to do that. And then just decided, you know, it wasn't, I had to go a different route and and everything else, but. i'll never I loved it. has fun. My best two friends, you know one just retired last year, was in E9. The other one's still there. he's He's at the Blue Angels right now as their command master chief.
00:35:02
Speaker
So like super excited for just still living you know still living through living through him that he's still in. Vicariously. Yeah. so But it's been fun in that sense. That's awesome. I think a lot of lizards can to relate to that that sentiment, that feeling of, you know...
00:35:18
Speaker
i'm I'm kind of in a similar position. I'm in the twilight of my career, and you know it's like family or career. What are we going to do? How often how much more are they going to ah be able to to endure and move and all that kind of stuff?
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's got to be a tough spot, but I feel for you. and I just told someone this. I just had to interrupt you. I just had, like this week, I had an older gentleman who was about to retire, and I said, and you you're going to, I would tell you the same advice, right? For you guys, the big blue and silver machine is still going to keep moving when you retire. Like it it has nothing, it's those wheels are moving. Yep.
00:35:52
Speaker
And I think I learned that like the big blue machine. And I told him, I was like, you can call it whatever you want. Like the big red machine, dude, that's still to move on when you retire. So you got you got to figure that piece out. Yeah. Somebody said it, oh gosh, last week, maybe. And i I forget, I had these conversations. I forget whether or not it was on a podcast or somebody I talked to in person, but it was, ah you know, I get everything mixed up, but ah that the fire department, when you leave it is going to operate just fine without you.
00:36:17
Speaker
A million percent. Regardless of how good you are as a fire chief, as a leader, deputy fire chief, or whatever position you hold, captain, yeah it's going to go on without you. We're going to roll on. They have to.
00:36:28
Speaker
you know They have to. They're going to figure it out. So that's a tough pill to swallow, I'm sure, especially for those in the twilight of the career where it's you have a bit of an identity crisis. you know It's like, well, what am going to do? They don't need trust me. They need somebody to need me. you know and So that's why it's so important to find a a mission outside of the military. Yeah. Yeah, it's purpose, man. I'll tell everybody. I went through – i wish i would have I wish I would have known Ryan Reynolds a little bit more.
00:36:53
Speaker
i would invested in an aviation gin. I should have long time ago. going to the actor Ryan Reynolds. Yeah, the actor Ryan Reynolds. I wish I would have invested in his aviation gin in about 2019. It would have been good, you know, to figure all that out. and Luckily, I'm over that now. But it's tough. Like when you don't, like you said it, like when you're called Command Master Chief, when those responsibilities are on you, when you're called you got the uniform whatever, right? Like you're called Captain, you're called Battalion Chief, right? You say that every day. yeah You come out of there and you're like, what's my purpose now? you know and And that's what really led me back. like That's kind of what led me back to it. you know and And I know the Navy holds their chiefs in high regard. And chiefs, correct me if I'm wrong, he's 739, right? Correct. That's how you refer. So chief, senior chief, master chief, right?
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah, very high regard. So, you know, and they similarly, i think across the services, the senior noncommissioned officers and in very high regard, especially E9s, you know, the chief master sergeant. And then I've heard I've heard some retired chief master and say, it's like when you get out, it's like nobody cares. Not that they don't care about your service. Thank you for your service. But nobody cares more than you do more than your family or, you know, who you were a year Like, what can you do for me now?
00:38:04
Speaker
That's ah And I think one of the big things that I learned, I like to say, like, I got my OJT MBA in those first, like, three or four years when I got out. Because what I was learning was they do care. It's not that they don't. But at the same time, it wasn't like us. Like, ours was...
00:38:24
Speaker
The money was always going to be there because of the war going on. So there was no like, well, if we don't, it was never like a ah money issue to stay ah to stay working. but But like when you get out, you're like, okay, ah they want, like people want to care about people a lot.
00:38:42
Speaker
But when it comes to do they, yeah it's this conundrum for business owners. There's bottom line. Correct. There's a bottom line. Right. There's like a, yeah. And it's tough. Yeah, we need to survive as a business. Yeah. And we don't have that on, that's not a military trait because you're like, you know, you're not going like, sure, we shut places down. we brat But that's fine. We put everybody else every every other place we can or whatever. was always There's always a flow of money for the troops, quote unquote. Yep, absolutely. And ah it it that was, I think, it wasn't a shock, but it was definitely a, oh, shit. Like, yeah okay, this is different. this is weight and And that changes your mindset. Because at some point you got to go, i can't be as, however you want to put it, as as brash, right? Because the other side is people could just go, I quit, right? like And we you couldn't do that either, right? like So I always tell people when they're reading some you know leadership books, I'm like, just...
00:39:32
Speaker
Make sure you think about who is telling your leadership book to with a grain of salt because there's definitely... the the i would say that the lessons still apply.
00:39:44
Speaker
But like I realized that my lessons are all built from people that I had complete control over to some degree. Right. Because I was military. I could control what time they did stuff like control.
00:39:55
Speaker
Right. All that stuff. But i when you get out, that lesson does it's a different lesson when when you when those people have a of a say. Right. And that say is just, well, go. ah I'm not going to deal with this shit. I'm going to go on to the next one. Like that's a difference that we did not see in other places because ours was, yeah, got to rehabilitate. Right. if If this dude is is horrible.
Civilian Leadership Insights
00:40:17
Speaker
Right. And you got it like you have to find a way to rehabilitate. It wasn't you couldn't push that problem on and they had no choice in it either. It's not like they could go. I quit. Like it wasn't how it worked. So I think that's some big differences that I see. Yeah. You know, in today's.
00:40:33
Speaker
yeah I know a lot of listeners can identify with that. man and I've certainly did did dealt with it myself. And I think that's a perfect segue into what I want to talk about next with you is leadership. Because and ah the military is just, in my experience, it seems, and this is really the only experience I've had in my my adult life, right? Like I joined right out of high school, basically. But what a leadership experience it is. So when you have to contend with that, like I can't just fire somebody, I can't push them away.
00:41:00
Speaker
um'm I'm given who I'm given as a leader. I'm given who I'm given as peers, subordinates, and you have to make it work. You have no choice. And then you're you're constantly given a new young adult out of high school, out of mom and dad's house that you need to walk through life, but also make a contributing part of the military and the fire service. Yeah.
00:41:22
Speaker
Um, and I just feel like that for those that take it seriously, those non-commissioned officers, senior non-commissioned officers, and even some of the E4s, right? They, um, it really can develop your leadership ability. Right. Uh, and so, yeah, I want to talk about, because that's, you know, the bulk of what you do now. Um, so talk to me about your, your consulting journey or what you did outside the military and, you know, what, why you started that.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, so honestly, the first venture I took, so I was raised business-wise. My dad was a business teacher at school. i would I was always in the business side of everything. So that was kind of like if I said, but back then you could take more of one class than the other. Now they have schools that you can specialize in high school. Yeah.
00:42:06
Speaker
so So business was always part of it. So i didn't I didn't know where that was going to come up later. But about 2002, I was at Whidbey Island. I was working there in Skagit County up in in Washington State, just about an hour and a half north of of Seattle.
00:42:21
Speaker
met I was working with Skagit Search and Rescue, so the ground star guys, like you had said, USAR. And again, those you know states like Utah, Nevada, they have like they're search and rescue. Washington State, Colorado, their search and rescue units are very robust. like they are you know they're They're not just pulling like the national and the world certs. They got their own stuff going on in those states. Skagit had that. Totally, 100%.
00:42:48
Speaker
The Mountain Rescue guys were, they had their own. Fallon is where Top Gun flies That's correct. It's either Fallon or, okay, Fallon, and then of course you got Nellis. Yep, and absolutely. Yeah, and so I've been to Fallon a few times, you know, and and I was part of those groups that were doing the the the stuff that in there. But when you got to those places, regardless, like, yeah it was still a, you know, yeah you had,
00:43:14
Speaker
Again, we were a small group, so when you got to a different spot, it was generally the same, but you had to figure out what was going on in there. So like Whidbey, for example, very robust system while they were there. They were utilized a lot from other places. So I got into the SAR. I was like, well, if I'm going to work with these guys, I might as well go be a part of them. So I ended up you know being a part of Skagit SAR. you know working. I worked with Joel Pratt, who's good friend of mine, still is. He works, he's a paramedic now in Seattle, also was on the national FEMA's teams. Joel's a great guy. And Joel calls me and he's like, hey man, we really should take advantage of like these people not understanding medicine. So we actually, love, I,
00:43:56
Speaker
just by chance happened to we started backcountry medical back then and we were doing like everything from wilderness first responder to wilderness EMT we were teaching all that stuff we could all the way up to like teaching gunshot wound management course for the state police so we were we were rolling then finally it just kind of burnt you know burnt out so I've always kind of stayed in this this adjacent realm even when I was like you said like I was still working, you know, Navy-wise, but I was doing the extra stuff on the
Leadership Consulting for Small Businesses
00:44:27
Speaker
side. So that really spun everything up.
00:44:29
Speaker
And then when I got out, and this really is where this is kind of culminated to, when I got out, I i met ah Dale Walls from Lion's Guide. He's the head of Lion's Guide. and And I just had broke. I just actually recently broke away and kind of did my own.
00:44:43
Speaker
But I was learning these kind of leadership skills for small businesses. So I was learning these kind of like, you know, i was doing mastery classes with small business owners. And I was just, I could feel their frustrations and they didn't have the control, like you said, like we did to re rehabilitate. and And frankly, they probably didn't have the time to, right? Like you weren't going to take the time like we did. Like it wasn't it was a no-fail like...
00:45:06
Speaker
He's your guy. hes She's your girl. Rehabilitate them right at your command. They were like, I'm done. Like, goodbye. I'm cutting loose and cutting bait and finding someone else, right? Totally different way of thinking about it. um But I had started and created this kind of everyday leader course and kind of curriculum, which was really based upon all my lessons and all the really books that I had started to really, I i got into this like I am now. It's probably my childhood trauma of of living with two kids. two educators but like i was just starting to do more schooling and learning more and learning more and it just kept craving that so i was putting all those lessons together formed it had been great and then all of a sudden like three two and a half years ago we get a phone call as we're doing total small business we're not thinking about we get a phone call from annapolis fire department and they're like you know their chief nathan powell their deputy nathan powell was like hey man we need exactly what you're teaching and i was like really
00:46:04
Speaker
And again, I ah shouldn't have been surprised because I knew it wasn't, you know, just because you're a government agency doesn't mean you're, you know, you're getting funded or you're doing... that We didn't do that, right? So I knew...
00:46:16
Speaker
But they were like, we love what you're talking about. We love the, you know, it's a different it's a different way to look at something rather than you know, what we were. So we gave it, so two and a half years ago, we do a course for them, all good. We do a second course, all good. And then all of a sudden, I don't know why, but I didn't pick up that that's where I should have gone.
00:46:34
Speaker
Like into this, into the, into fire and EMS again. I didn't pick that up as like, well, maybe I should do a whole. So I just kept trying as what we were going. And then finally, at the end of last year, So unbeknowing, we run this kind of 90-day test. We end up getting, you know, I ended up getting 90-day one-on-one. ended up getting a whole a whole group coming on to an online course. And then, i you know, i went up to Kodiak and Kodiak, I did a two-day, you know, had that all scheduled. So we proved, again, that the fire was...
00:47:04
Speaker
The fire departments were in need of this. Right. And then as I now start to learn about, you know, retention, recruitment, burnout issues, everything that's happening, i was like, man, this is needed probably more than more than ever. Right. And so. So there was an appetite out there for folks. Yeah, I think so, too. And I think, you know, people and I
Writing for Firehouse Magazine
00:47:24
Speaker
i got this. I was I don't know if I think, you know, but I recently got got brought on to Firehouse magazine to start writing for them in ah in a little different capacity. Yeah. So I'm super excited. Pete Matthews there was was awesome. I was on his podcast and we were like, man, let's write, you know, let's write a column. And so. yeah But what I would found was and I think I'm still finding this is that.
00:47:47
Speaker
It's great. So I'm on my own now doing my thing, just me, you know going to fire departments. that But what I found was is that like there's a lot of people speaking about the problems, but there wasn't a lot of solutions being given. right It was like, yeah, of course you have this. And of course you have to hold people accountable. And of course this. And I was like, I think everybody was waiting for, okay, so how? right like okay so what's the Give us the magic bean or whatever. And i and know what I think is is that most people don't know what...
00:48:15
Speaker
Like it's easy on the surface to look at it and go, sure, we work in a job field that is probably going to cause you cancer when you get older. Right. OK, got it. We live in a job field where heart disease is a major factor, where we're not healthy, where right. Like all that stuff is absolute where overtime is, you know, manded like, you know, we're understaffed over all that. Right. you You recruit to a job that says you're going to carry a kid out of a building, and the truth is is you know you got an elderly lady that you're picking up you know three times a week because of whatever, because we're running more EMS.
00:48:48
Speaker
I get it. I understand. And so when I had kind of – again, i did it I didn't do it – I did it just because – Like all the topics I chose or how to look at this whole thing like this from lead self, you know, or from find self, lead self, lead crew. It was really this whole like, okay, this is needed here. This is kind of looked at from there because what we're good at the fire ground, dude. Like we don't, we're great at the fire ground.
00:49:15
Speaker
We are not good at the firehouse. Like leading at the firehouse is where people, I think, get frustrated. They have like all those things. And there's some of it's organic and then we we can't change. But I tell everybody, I'm like, control what you can. Like if we're controlling what we can, people be okay with knowing that the that the that the service has issues that it's working through. But man, those daily things, that's what people cared about. It was it was cared about the the everyday stuff. And that's really what took off for me. The everyday things.
00:49:43
Speaker
Man, it it it is. It's 90%, it seems, of what we do is is managing those those personal dynamics and and leading people. I think there's there's always that need for leadership competency. And like I said, I think the military does a great job in developing that skill through OJT, but also through formal processes, especially you know through professional military education and stuff like that. That gives you some stuff, right? But it's that hands-on experience. I'm not saying that we're perfect in the Air Force or in the military by any means, but we certainly dial in a bit more.
00:50:18
Speaker
than maybe the outside defense, public safety, fire service, law enforcement. I'm not saying that there's not departments out there that do a great job. I'm sure that there are, but I think it it comes down to a funding issue in some cases. But it's it's funny, and I seem to bring this up on every episode, that i that i' but it's always relevant. So i'm not trying to brat I'm in the executive fire officer course at National Fire Academy, and in talking with these tenured and these tenured chiefs,
00:50:43
Speaker
that are, you know, but been in, you know, 25, in some cases, up closer to 30 years, they, those, they have those leadership issues that you described, you know, it's like, Oh, I'm not somebody's not showing up to work. This guy won't listen to me. They did this, they did that. And my head, I'm like,
00:51:02
Speaker
that isn't That's an NCO leadership issue, a non-commissioned officer leadership issue. like you should An NCO would know how to solve that and for the most part. you know There's some NCOs that aren't good. There's some that are excellent. you know But i just I just think that the military translates so well. And so, yeah, you bringing your military service into that to to fill the need within the fire service seems like a great fit.
Military to Fire Service Transition
00:51:24
Speaker
Well, and and again, i've I've been fired my whole life, not being in it. I've been either adjacent to it that worked with them. Or if I would have been like, if you would have told me that i was I was a paramedic back then and that was what my thing was, then and if I would have got out early, what would have happened? I would have would used that skill set and what would have I would have been a paramedic at a place. We would have got absorbed by a fire and I would have went through the academy. And now all of a sudden I would be a firefighter. Paramedic is probably where I would have gone. Right. That would have been my path. But I want to just real quick what something that you had mentioned.
00:51:58
Speaker
When you look at these these issues that people are having, right, because you talk about a person that doesn't want to do the job or whatever. Perfect. Let's, you know, I could either hammer, put the hammer down, right? You can use the sugar. You can use the salt. That's the default response, you know. 100%. Go do charge. do it. right i'm in charge go Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, like, this the course this week, we talked a lot about, well, I want to use the hammer.
00:52:21
Speaker
I want to use the hammer. And everybody, again, and you probably get this a lot, is everybody goes, well, oh, are you are you like Jocko? Are you like Goggins? are you Like, is that how your your theories are? and i'm And I tell people, i'm like, I'm like...
00:52:34
Speaker
Those are great. And I don't have any problems with those. But I always ask people, how many of those how many of those people do you have at your at your station? How many kind of the Jocko-ish, Goggin-ish people do you have there? and And it's usually one or two. And I'm like, that's great.
00:52:51
Speaker
That's what works. for and ah And it's a great thing to to call out because... Again, awesome that that that's what works for you. But I tell people all the time, if i if I don't relate to you, if you can't relate to what I'm saying, man, I've got 20 other people who I know do leadership development, which I will happily say, please go listen to whoever, right? Go listen to to to Matt on the fire dog. He's talking some stuff that is definitely more, you know, relatable to you. Because I could i can understand, and I learned this the hard way. When I was working with all my, the mastery group kind of business owners, I'm like telling them, oh, you got to read Call Sign Chaos because Mattis is going to teach you about, you know, being brilliant on your basics. And and I remember this woman, I love her to death, Jen. I love her to death still.
00:53:36
Speaker
And she was like, I don't understand how going through Iraq. Right. Like is the same as me at my business, you know, that I'm the vice president of. And I was like, I can completely understand how you can't make that translation. And I think that that's what some people love Simon. Some people love John. Yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
Right. So I've always said, like, you got to find what relates to people. And I think that's a huge leadership trait. Right, Matt? Like yeah you you as a leader being able to to relate relate a lesson. Man, that's huge.
00:54:08
Speaker
and i'd And I'd like to defend our – I'd like to clarify a point too. like I think the the inclination for maybe folks not affiliated with the military is that we approach it militarily and that you get in line, you listen to what I say, I'm your leader. And that that that doesn't – we're dealing with human beings in the military too. They don't – you know and As the generations come up, you I think you're there's there's more and more autonomy, more and more questions, which you want from from younger people. and We're not direct in the way that maybe people think that we are. like You have to you have to convince somebody to do the that it was their idea. right It's this exercise in manipulation, and it's a bad word to say manipulation, but it's a It's an exercise in getting some person onto a path that you know that they have to be on, but making them to decide to making them decide to do it. So just because I'm affiliated with the military and I say that we have good leadership competencies from coming out of the military, it's not because I've been pointing at people and telling them what direction to run and they've been listening to me. That that couldn't be further from the truth. like We do teach soft skills and walking people through, but we know also how to flip the switch in those
00:55:19
Speaker
combat related or emergency environments where I do have to direct. And so I just need you to, yeah, I just need you to hit the easy button,
Leadership Communication Challenges
00:55:29
Speaker
right? Like, yeah it's yeah yeah, like sometimes when, when I'm leading and you know, this, like I just need ah to my, to my people that I'm leading, there are times I just need you to hit the easy button and trust me, That what I'm asking you to do is what we need to do, right? There's no time. And those are the ones that are usually, we've all said this a million times. Those are all the stuff that's written in blood. It's written in ash, whatever you want to call it. I under, like 100%, there is that time to do.
00:55:59
Speaker
But I will say most of our time is not that. Most of our time is, you know, it's not on calls that are whatever. It's back at the thing. It's dealing with. Right. It's all that. really The firehouse issues. yeah It's totally different. That's literally what I was like. Yeah. Like, i like, you know those are the stuff that people aren't.
00:56:19
Speaker
you know and And we have such a hierarchy in the fire service that we've had for so long that sometimes that also gets in the way of things. And you know this. We were all raised, our generation, all the chiefs that are now, right? We all came out of the 9-11. talk about this in the course, but the motivation of everybody in 2002 was,
00:56:41
Speaker
was very easy to see. nobody like Nobody had recruiting problems or retention problems in 02, right? and And now all those people, and I give it to 06. If you came in anywhere from like 01, October of 01 to like 06 timeframe, you probably came in because of that in so you know nine eleven had something potentially. Not all of them, I get it, but there was a lot. Well, now all those people are Chiefs. Well, you knew that it was imminent that you could be engaged in sureff that. so Right, and anyway now all those people are leading, and now they're at this time. And what I find, what I've seen, is a lot of the the the Chiefs that are there go, well, your motivation sucks right now. Right? Like, I can't motivate my brand new recruits. And I look at them and I go, well, first of all,
00:57:32
Speaker
You were not motivated like this. You were like, I'll do anything. I watched, you know, I watched the firefighters put the flag up like Iwo Jima. Bro, let's go. That is not what you have today. And thank God. Right. Like I tell people, thank God we don't have, you know, and who knows what's happening now. But, you know, like to that extent, like I'm OK with. So I think then you have to be more creative.
00:57:56
Speaker
Right. Because at the same time, leadership, right? Yeah, that's a dilemma. And you could all day blame the person, blame the generation, the yada yada, yada. But it's our fault. like It's like, well, it's you. It's on you.
00:58:07
Speaker
Figure it out, you know, motivate them and don't just tell them what to do because that's not going to work. Yeah, it's going to work in the near term, but not in the long term. They're going to stop listening to you. They're going to stop coming to you with their problems.
00:58:18
Speaker
Ooh, there's some Paulism right there, baby. It's one of my favorite. Does he say that? He said, so one of his 13s are, yeah. So he says, he goes, he goes, if, if I'll paraphrase a little bit, but when soldiers stop bringing you their problems, one of two things have happened. Either they don't, they think you can't fix their problem Or they write they they think you don't care about their problem. And either one of those is is a failure of leadership. And I think that's true. like if you People talk about open door policies all the time. And I shut that down.
00:58:48
Speaker
I'm like, that's cool. You have an open door policy. That's great. Well, they still have to walk through it. And I promise you, they don't want to walk through it. They don't want to walk through it because for a couple reasons. And I know some people get them. I get it. No problem. But...
00:59:01
Speaker
Most of them don't because remember, you're evaluating them. I think people in general, and I ask this all the time, i say, do you guys love, you guys love leaders? Like we love people who lead and we want to be led. Like if you, especially joining this service, right? You fire yeah EMS military. There's a screw loose someplace. I get it. No problem. You said, I want to do this. Great. that That's something to me. I'm like, man, if they said they want to do the job,
00:59:29
Speaker
You've got 50%, you've got them. But now you've got it the rest of the 50% is how you treat them, how you how you interact with them, right? And how you support them. That's all leadership in my eyes, right? So when I i see that, and then I see and i see like,
00:59:45
Speaker
I see brand newbies getting, for lack of better term, hazing, right? Like you come on and they get shit on because they're a rookie. And I sit there and I go, that might have worked back then when when we were there because it was whatever. But today's generation, like Gen Z, they trust influencers over institutions, period. Like that's what they do.
01:00:04
Speaker
So I look at that and everybody snarls. And as soon as I say the word influencers, I always get the battalion chiefs. And then I say to them, like, just change that word. If I told you they trust leaders over institutions.
01:00:19
Speaker
Then Those influencers their leaders. Yeah, that's exactly what I tell them. That's exactly what it is. And if we took the time, I did, right? i had to I got a 10-year-old little guy, and I'm starting to watch some of the people he's watching all the time, and they're not like they're not what I thought they were. It wasn't brain rot all the time that that that's what it was. And so now I go back and I say, change your mentorship program if you have one, and you know assign somebody...
Mentorship Programs Importance
01:00:46
Speaker
you know To be kind of this influential person, that's what a mentor is, right? And so that has changed the game to some open people's eyes and went, okay, I get that they're not as motivated and I don't want them to be. I get that I have to do more on our side to get them and keep them motivated. And then and I got to sustain that, right? Sustainment of all is, okay, this is what we need to do. And there's a lot of people not...
01:01:12
Speaker
I mean, we we know this. They're failing because of that, right? The burnout, I get i get that we're understaffed. That's a lot of stuff. Mando, overtime, all that. I get that side. I know. I know there's other things that are kind of out of people's control, but let's work on what we can control. And, you know, if you're going recruit somebody or retain them, and I do think retain more important at this, you know, recruit second, but...
01:01:36
Speaker
Dude, put the effort in then to to make sure that your people are good you know and and know that. right There's a lot. And I'm not saying it's not being done. It is. i hate to be. It certainly is. Yeah. I think there's better things we can do. As you've alluded to, there's there's a need out there. you get phone calls, there's certainly a need for it. I want to talk about your experience with with those fire departments you've interacted with. yeah through your So you you do consulting or you you teach. You do keynote speaking. um and Through that experience and your interactions with these fire departments, these fire service leaders, like what are some of the things? like What are the maybe the top three? and you know You always like to do things in threes, it seems, or the top whatever issues or questions or conversations that you seem to be yeah having.
01:02:22
Speaker
so A lot of it, it's I usually get two things. right One is we have a problem with communications. So I love that one, like leadership communications and and just, I think, in that sense. So that's um that's one of the first ones we always get. And then the other one we always get, too, is is how do we hold people accountable, right? So they're having issues holding junior folks accountable. and And you could tell a plethora of reasons why. But those are the two main things that come up. And then when I usually get, so i usually ask ah a pre, like in my two days, I'll ask a pre-course question. And one of them is, what do you love about your job? Because I think people overlook that sometimes about what... what Highlight the good. Yeah, you should know that. Like, if I'm a leader, I want to know what my people love about the job. And and usually I get, I love helping people.
01:03:09
Speaker
And I love my family, like my, you know, my fired apart family, which is great. So I look at all this and go, okay, you've got ah an accountability and a communication issue that are your two top priorities. And then you also have... motion Right.
01:03:22
Speaker
So let's let's debunk a couple of these because I love this. This is my favorite. I'm going to tell everybody and here's the hot take. i don't Unless your radios are broken, your phones are broken, ah like physically broken, i will tell every group that they do not have, and I still believe this, they do not have communication problems. They don't.
01:03:45
Speaker
Nobody has communication problems. And I know this is a wordplay, so everybody's like, whatever, Flip. I think you have email, you have apps, you have radios, you have ah all the ways that you can, you have face to face, you have bulletin boards, you have all hands calls, you have meetings every morning.
01:04:03
Speaker
i i mean, the list goes on and on. And I love doing this in the course. And I go, so you tell me. Do you have – look at all the ways you have to communicate. so Yeah, where's the problem if there're so people don't understand? The problem is another big C word that people – again, almost the same amount of letters, but it's clarification, right? So what people have are clarification problems. They don't have communication problems because you have a billion ways to communicate. But here's the problem. We either make assumptions that people know what they're talking about.
01:04:31
Speaker
We have hierarchy issues that I don't want to ask people some things or not. There's assumptions just in our line of work. We don't want you to think that we're weak because we ask you a question about something. So I tell units all the time, if you do anything,
01:04:47
Speaker
from From what I take and talk to you about, right, one of the things you need to do is start to use these two phrases in your firehouse. If you can use, does
Accountability in Systems
01:04:55
Speaker
that make sense? And that's coming from the leader to whoever and go, hey, does that does that make sense to you? Am I saying? And this isn't, my wife hates it when I say I do it to her all the time. and She's like, I'm not stupid. I know. And I'm like, I promise you it's that me saying that is about, did I communicate it a way to you that you understand what I'm looking for to do? Right. It's not a, are you, are you smart enough to figure out what I'm saying? That's not it. Most of our people are smart enough. Our junior folks have the desires. They have all the same stuff. It's just, it's, it's laying under the surface a little, but if you start to have a a culture that allows you to say,
01:05:33
Speaker
Does that make sense? Right. So that's the first one. and The second one is you have to have a culture that people are able, junior folks are able to say, hey, can you clarify that for me? Right. So if if I can ask those two questions. Allow for questions. Right. You've now just, you just eliminated all your communication problems. Because if I get something back and go, hey, Matt, I got this from you, but can you clarify what you're asking for? I think what you want is, and I say it and you go, hey, man, let me just tweak that. This is more what I'm looking for. Yeah.
01:06:02
Speaker
Tell me that that wouldn't be alone. you Anything. doesn't matter. Schedules. you know, emergency, getting things to people. Just give me, how can I clarify that? And does it make sense? So that's number one. You don't have communication problems. That's the one of the biggest things that people see. The other one's accountability.
01:06:20
Speaker
And I'm going to tell you, Matt, I learned it on Tuesday. Monday night, I learned it. I don't know why I hadn't seen it. So it's very, time is perfect that I'm i'm on here and talking about it. It's fresh in your mind. Fresh in my mind.
01:06:33
Speaker
I had a senior battalion chief this week. In the middle of one of my classes, and it's something I strive to do. There is a lot of people, like you we said before, talking about the problems.
01:06:45
Speaker
And it's easy to identify the problems. That is not the case. It's even easier to identify the big things that, yes, you need to hold your people accountable, right? All that. and And the question I get asked the most, how do I hold people accountable? And before Tuesday, i would have told you, well, you need to. And then I realized,
01:07:04
Speaker
what I probably should have realized forever. If I have to hold you accountable, right? So let's say flips in charge of Matt, right? You're my whatever. You're my captain. I'm your BC.
01:07:16
Speaker
In order for me to ask you to do something, I'm holding myself accountable to making sure that I'm asking you to do it, right? Like like part of it is first me holding myself accountable to fit. Like, let's say you had an issue.
01:07:31
Speaker
Cool. And I have to address it. People hate difficult conversations. That's one of the things we we find all the time is they don't want to they don't want to discipline somebody, right? Uncomfortable with. so But what I realized was, and and this is what this battalion chief did. He's in the middle of class and he's like, you could see him being...
01:07:49
Speaker
a little bit frustrated and passionate by like, flip, you're not giving me the magic being, right? Like, how do I hold, what do I say to this person to hold them accountable? was Was sort of what I felt he was, right? So I went home and I thought about it, I reflected on it, and I was like, you know what?
01:08:07
Speaker
It's not about you by you asking him, you're already holding yourself. So you got to hold yourself first. We all know that we've heard that. But what I figured out was if you have a system in place or a framework in place that already holds people accountable by itself, then it's self accountability, right? Then I'm holding, then you don't even have to hold that person accountable because you know, the system's going to be there that he'll do it himself, right? So just by pure dumb luck every week, Matt's got to come and he's our captain. He's got to give me this report.
01:08:38
Speaker
Cool. That's great. That's holding accountability and the system's providing for it rather than saying to yourself, well, I have to hold you. How do I hold you accountable? It's not a question, right? It's not like a, just by me making sure I'm doing it, I'm doing it on my own. So I'm holding myself accountable first to make sure you are. But then I, then I think what we don't like to do Right? On the fire ground, everything is checklists, workflows. That's what we do on the fire ground. Listen to the guy in the white hat. He's going to tell us what to do. The gal in the white hat, they're going to tell us what to do, and we do it.
01:09:13
Speaker
Do we do that in the firehouse? No. like We don't have structures or frameworks in the firehouse to help us with all of our leadership stuff. It ends up being this... Yeah. Hey, just just make it up as you go. And then when you look at like what's happening with technology and how fast things are moving, i don't know how many people have said we have a battalion chief meeting and half my people know what we said there because some battalion chief texts it out to their people. And I don't do that. I like to. So now it's like this communication issue all over the place or this clarification issue all over the place. And then the accountability just breaks down and they blame instead of saying, hold on, our system isn't set up to have people hold each other accountable, right? Or hold themselves. But I think if you, if you make the system and everybody doesn't want to hear that, we don't want to have, I was like, dude, trust me. Like I, again, this week I had heard, well, we don't want to make somebody have to do. And I'm like, there's half your problem. Like you,
01:10:08
Speaker
If you just put it in, it doesn't it's not hard once it's once it's set up, right? You're like, we're all used to it Because we like structure. We like structure. We like rules. That's what we love at the firehouse. You tell me how to do a code. Yeah, we need it. Yeah.
01:10:20
Speaker
like And we do it every time on the fire ground. But then we get back. Yeah, totally. So just say that, like, it is chaos in some of these firehouses because people don't want to, you know, they're afraid to put a system in because they're afraid of, well, people aren't going let. Trust me, when a system is in and it's working, you don't even see it. Like, like it's it's just this is how we do business. You know what i mean? like You know, i I think that's the foundation, right? The policy, the procedure is kind of the foundation. Yeah.
01:10:49
Speaker
we We don't like to talk about it's the foundation of leadership, but don't threaten it. Don't use it like, hey, if you don't follow the policy, right? So the foundation is the policy, and then the the leadership and the communication is – It is the bulk of what you do. Everybody knows the policies there. Everybody knows what you need to do. You don't have to say it out loud, right?
01:11:09
Speaker
It's just that then you, you have to lead appropriately through that. And when it comes to, you know,
Effective Leadership Strategies
01:11:16
Speaker
if somebody doesn't do something right, then you bring them in, you engage with them, communicate with them. And be the leader and and ask, ah to to your first point about communication and the issues and the asking if they understand, the approach that I like to take is open-ended questions. Sure. You know, you know so that they say in there instead of, you know, yes or no, it's like...
01:11:37
Speaker
You know, so what did you think about that? Or what do you what what do you think that we should do? You know, I like ones like that so that we get a little bit more creativity in the response. Right. And I think that helps in in clarifying things. But i I'd like to yeah just mention the policy is that foundation. It has to be there or else it's chaos. Right. Yeah. and And I think here's where people get a little bit right. This is where you take a a a savvy leader who has right.
01:12:03
Speaker
I heard I had a I had a department say to me, we're talking about evaluations and like, oh, we went away from the annuals. We now do quarterly. And i said, that's cool. And they're like, yeah, we have them do it. They run it like the the junior folks run it. and And I tell people all the time, to your point, right?
01:12:20
Speaker
If you're going to come to me with a problem, my policy has always been no problem. Just come with a solution, right? Or least what you think is there. now and And I know sometimes you're going to have junior folks that don't have solutions because they don't know. That's fine. You got to recognize when you're not going to get a ah good solution. you're not going to right or you're goingnna have to You're going to have to pull that out of somebody when you're going to make a leadership lesson happen.
01:12:43
Speaker
But but well here's what I've learned, too. I've learned that if you if you let them run everything, right, you're missing. So i'm a big Patrick Lincey only guy. think have it behind me Yeah, it's it's the truth about employee engagement, right? And if you if if they don't know who they are, if their job isn't measured and it doesn't mean something to them, right? and And that's your job as a leader to make sure that you show them that their job has meaning, that they're meeting the metrics you want to, yeah that you need to, right? So if you do that four times a year, great.
01:13:13
Speaker
But if you bring it to – if you let them bring it, here's what's the problem that I always see with this. And and I love where you want to go in giving it to them, but the junior folks want to be led, right? Like they they need that in the very beginning to be more of a leader rather than – Yeah. ah Like I get a captain. I want to be, I want to be led too. Yeah. hundred percent. And I say that and I'm like, dude, they want you to lead. They don't want, yeah. They don't want to come in and go, I think I'm doing well. Like, I don't like, so you got to be careful in that, in that kind of sense. You can't be laws affair. Correct. it's it's ah It's a balance between being direct and indirect. Like here, here, here are my goals. Here are the broader strategic goals or the broader goals for the direction that I want this organization to go in.
01:13:57
Speaker
You're on my team. I'm glad that you are. you're the more capable You're the most capable of anybody that we could get. Let's get after one, two, three, four, five. How do you think we should get after number one? You know? Yep. And and I think, and and look, i you got to tie the to your to to this whole point.
01:14:13
Speaker
Your policies, your procedures, your workflows, right? Those are all your black and white SOPs to how you're going to do business, right? Those are important because you're never going to be able to tie someone down to accountability until are they're not going to be able to hold themselves self-accountable unless there's a solid set of rules that everybody has agreed upon that they know what the metrics are and what's expected. And like I do two courses that and I know no one else talks about. no one talks about spam, which we can get to. in a second But nobody talks about being a good follower, right? Either. they talk about They talk about, well, we need you to be a leader even at your level. And i i I bring out, look, you need four things to be a good follower, right? First, I need you to show up.
01:14:55
Speaker
Second, I need you to step up. Third, I need you to lead up. And fourth, I need you to know up, right? So it it for me, it's those four things. of First, you get a brand newbie. Look, man, I just need you to show up.
01:15:07
Speaker
Like show up, be squared away, be on time, simple. But at some point, I'm gonna ask you to step up. Whatever that's gonna be, i need you to step up at that point so you can do something. Whether it's you got dinner tonight and you're making it or I need something you know cleaned or write whatever that is. And then I need you to, at some point, I'm gonna ask you to lead. right Leading something, whether you got a crew, whether you're on the nozzle, at some point, there's some leadership piece that I need you to do. And then last, I tell everybody, at some point, once you start to become longer, the the words, well, I didn't know, isn't, you can't say that anymore once you get to a certain point, right? Like, obviously some things, so that's my no-up thing. But I'm like, if you could do those four things, and that's all you need to hold people accountable to from the beginning. Now, granted, if you're a brand new BC, you can't just show up, right? You got to have all the rest already there. But for my newbies, I tell people, don't don't expect more than just this. If you just tell them this is how I want to do it, right, show up, step up, lead up, know up, then all of a sudden the pressure's off, right, to some degree. Because what I found in the outside world was I had a lot of – I worked at this one company in California, and the the the the um
01:16:20
Speaker
ah CEO was a brand-new CEO. He's like, man, I saw how it was all working. I wanted to do it on myself. And he didn't want to put rules in. he was like, no, we didn't have those rules before. And he didn't want to put a structure necessarily around it. He's like, no, people can kind of, you know, I trust. And I'm like, bro, if you don't,
01:16:38
Speaker
We all need boundaries. Right. You have to have and one was simple is like, do you refill a gas tank before you, you know, if you're using the company car and you your rental, do you, you fill it up before? And he thought everybody should know that you fill it up before you get. And I was like, they don't all know that. Right. Like it's not, you can't assume that people know. and d c for Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
01:16:58
Speaker
you know and And people go, well, if you make it, you spoon feed
Leadership Evolution in Fire Services
01:17:01
Speaker
them. Look, it's a different world we live in. right I did a huge generational study, you know and i and I found it just on my own. want them focus on what's important. Yes, absolutely. if it's right Just follow the steps, man. Fill the gas tank. Park it in this spot. right and focus on what I want you to focus on what's important. Let me tell you some of the smaller procedural things to make the job so you don't have to focus so much on that. Right. and right There's no...
01:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's time. Like, this that's the other thing, right? We try, I think, to impress... George Carlin said this best. He's a huge proponent back in the day just of saying the things. But he said, everything in America is cyclic. And I'm going know, every 20 years, things are coming back around and we're always bigger, badder, better, bigger, better. It has to be that. And he said, well, we don't take time and enough is to plateau. Like, it's okay that someone stays at a certain rank because they're learning whatever they need to. And it's and it's I think it's our job to to go, hey, maybe we're not ready for this yet. Or if if you see someone who's a good example of maybe you want them to be, you know, or maybe you think they could be a good leader, you know, in a different color helmet someday, than Cool. Then you could take it upon yourself to start giving them those leadership lessons as you see fit as the right time. But I think to his point, sometimes you just got to let people marinate a little bit and and learn some lessons at a certain level. We've had a lot of because, you know, the gap, right? This gap that we have that we have like these 20 year, 25 year kind of group that all came in.
01:18:33
Speaker
And then it's like we have a gap to like these 10 years, right? Like, oh, I've only been in 10 years or less. So there's this there's this middle gap. And what I've said, my next-door neighbor used to own like one of the top, not own, but he used to be on the top five, one of the top five leadership podcasts in the in the world.
01:18:51
Speaker
And he said, he goes, the rise of the mediocre leader has happened. And we're okay with that. Like, we're okay with this kind of mediocre-ness sitting there because our group was so leadership-focused, war, let's go Everybody involved had that intensity.
01:19:06
Speaker
And we don't have that now. Right. So all these other things are kind of slipping in It's a lot different than what I think what it used to be, even even so far. and I mean, you'll you probably see it better at at where you're at.
01:19:17
Speaker
But like, it's not the same as it used to be in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's not what Iran is at this point. You know, so I think you'll start to see that more, though, as we go through and and with junior folks. Just let them ripen at the time that they need to. You know, you don't need to you don't need to make them fast. Yeah.
01:19:33
Speaker
Yeah, leadership is always evolving. you know and People are always evolving. Things are changing. people The way that people think is – but there are some of those key you know core competencies that shouldn't go away through that evolution. 100%. To his point, you know that mediocrity is slipping in where it shouldn't. you know There are some things of the past leader that that are good that they went away. right there There's – there was a tendency to but be much more autocratic. Yes. Through World War II and Vietnam, go do because I said so. yeah We just had you know on on the last podcast, episode 65, talking about a wildfire in California in 1977. A Honda. yeah Where the the firefighters, these augmenty firefighters were just told, man, just you go do. you know Because their commanders, their leaders were all from the Vietnam era, and that's just what they did. yeah like' that That's how they operated. That was normal. Same with World War II, right? That's not necessarily the way to be, right? Autocratic, it has a very specific application, of a very specific time when it's necessary. You know, emergency scene, when you just got to lock in, you have to listen to what I tell you to do. And yeah, combat, I can, you know, I would think is another example of that. But for 99.9% your time, like that's not
01:20:47
Speaker
necessarily the right answer, right? Yeah. that kind of stuff should go away. But then there's those core competencies like communication, caring, all that kind of stuff that should continue to move through and and not being laws of fear, making sure that the policy is, the foundation is set. And those kind of things need to maintain through the evolution.
01:21:06
Speaker
i You nailed it in saying, and we still do it. This is the hard, this is, I think the hard part that people have an issue with. I don't think for the first time And maybe not.
01:21:18
Speaker
But the fire ground is exactly what we talked about doing, right? Like, it is about do as I say. i need you to do this right now. Like, you you get some feedback. But a lot of it is, you know, I'm still going base a decision off of what my... The Nozeman sees exactly what's going on, right? He's the furthest one in. And he can relay information back. There's some decentralized decision making. Absolutely. Right? It is that way. But then... Yeah, you you want that Nozeman to be a leader, too. Right. In his own... response A hundred percent. And everybody is to some degree their own, right? You have to lead yourself. That's the accountability piece. I get that. But when we go back to the firehouse,
01:21:57
Speaker
We don't make the switch to go, okay, timeout. I was that leader the way I needed to be on the fire ground. Fire's over. Now I have to change and go back to, right, the the the very more fluid, very more, right, like the dynamics of a leader in the firehouse are probably 10 to 20 times more than what it is on the fire ground, right? your Fire ground is very easy. It's easy leadership on the yeah fire ground. I mean, you know, I'm not suggesting that a structure fire is an easy situation yeah to take care of. It's just the leadership is easy. Totally, because it's set for you.
01:22:33
Speaker
it's It's literally if this, then this. If I see a code and I see, ah ah you know, whatever rhythm I see, i in the back of my right but in the back of my head, I'm going, hey, I know because I see this, I need to do this. Same thing. and You get back at the house, it's not so...
01:22:50
Speaker
Well, he's he's not performing like he should. Hold on. I need to automatically. Well, that's not it. Like there could be a million different things. You got to go investigate it, figure it out. I told somebody this the other day. I said, just think of the environment you could have if someone can come in and go, hey, man, ah freaking I we were working all weekend. I didn't get a chance to cut my grass, whatever the cases are, just something something stupid. But you're like, I didn't get to do my home stuff.
01:23:18
Speaker
You know, can we work it out? Like a great, ah a good leader, if you can. And I know the... Man, i'm I'm trying to schedule that dude off a day. Like, hey, man, you're supposed to work Tuesday. We don't need you. It was an extra job. You know, take Tuesday off. I know you i know you're here today, but take tomorrow off because you didn't get a chance. like And I know it's not that simple. I get it. I know manning is a huge issue. Staffing is a huge issue. I understand that. But, like, being able to forward think and go, man, I need my people to get off, you know, and or have some time away or or whatever the case, that's a different skill set than you're using on the fire than you're using on the fire ground. And I think, to your point, very autocratic. And we still have the hierarchy, right? You've got to follow this guy, follow this guy, right? There's not gal or girlre ga whatever. It's paramilitary in the farce. Yeah, totally.
01:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't want to suggest that – the majority are autocratic out there. Cause in my experience, it's really not, it's not the case there, but there are a handful and they stick out, you know, like sore thumbs. So I think there's a lot of great leaders out there. I think there's a lot of people doing great things. There's a lot of good subordinate leaders. There's a lot of great followers too. So, yeah you know, I know we've had a lot of conversations about you should do this, that, and the other thing. There's probably a lot of people out there doing that. So one hundred percent, you know, it's, I always like to highlight that, you know, that there's some good, there's some good leaders out there. but there are always,
01:24:37
Speaker
leadership issues, right? There's always gaps in communication. There's always clarity issues. There's always accountability issues. And I think you nailed it when, you know, of course you have that experience in in talking with these fire departments, but I would say in my experience in interacting with the the firefighters, you know, within, within my circle, it's the same thing. It's like, Oh, how do I hold this guy accountable? Sick leave abuse, right? um Not showing up on time. If a guy shows up,
01:25:03
Speaker
Drunk, right? And I mean, these are the kind of things that happen every day. And, you know, not in the same place, but across the enterprise, right? And it's always... a those are always Those are the top two. You know yeah you nailed it on the head with that. It really is. and it's just like yeah figuring Figuring out how to navigate those is is always a challenge. yeah It's always worth talking about. Absolutely. absolutely and you're gonna until we have all the like it's never I tell people all the time, like i could and anybody can, I could come talk to you right now at your department.
01:25:35
Speaker
and we can And I can ask you, tell you to put all these things in place. And if you don't, then my my message the next year, if I came back, would be the exact same. I'd say, well, we didn't do anything. But even if you changed, even if you did whatever, and I tell everybody one thing, I don't, yeah if you can change one thing,
01:25:54
Speaker
And then I always say one for one for you, one for the crew. Right. Because we we talk about different leadership stuff that you can do for yourself. We talk about what you can like what you can do for your crews and how you can kind of put some frameworks together. But I tell everyone for you, one for the crew. If you can adopt a couple of those sayings, like does it make sense? Clarity, that stuff. That's one thing that will change your entire thing. But even listening, in listening to listening is such that's that's such a big piece of communication. Even even sick leave.
01:26:24
Speaker
There's a, why is that person not come? Like, I remember, and you probably do too, when the days are good, you don't care that you're not at home. Like, you're just like, this is To your point, when we deployed, I tell this all the time, it is harder, I think, for the average firefighter today who is working six days a week and they're mandated to to step on because they can't mandate it over time. It's not like they're, right? Sure, they're making a crap load of money, but it doesn't matter. Like,
01:26:54
Speaker
ah prove real quick that money doesn't matter. Right. Yeah. It doesn't matter at a certain point. Right. But like, so I know why they're using their sick days. Right. And by the way, they're supposed to be able to use their sick days. So we shouldn't be like, well, why is he, whether it's abuse or not? I told it, but it's still, when your firehouse is good,
01:27:13
Speaker
You don't feel like that. Like you don't, you know, and and I've seen some great, really creative ways people still like, you know, families coming in and and allowing to come in during the day when, you know, for lunches and things, you know, like there was, I've seen some good things where people still made sure they, that their, that their people were, were still connected, you know, at home and things like that. Cause you're right. but we' The end all be all is like the business. its The job's got to get done.
01:27:41
Speaker
We've got to have those people on watch. It it is important. and And I just think we are, to your point, we hear so much about the negativities and so much about the, but most people are doing it right, right? there's you We know the toxic leaders. We can pull them out. My focus is the leaders that just direct, like, what do I do when we have all this stuff, you know? yeah Maybe the leaderships that are the leaders that are doing it right, but they you know did sharpen the skills. I think we all need to sharpen the skills. you know No matter how tenured you are. it's there's i was ah I was a tactical level leader 10 years ago, right? And i've i've that some of that skill is atrophied. And so it's important to sharpen that skill set. Yeah.
01:28:25
Speaker
I think it's always worth talking about this kind of stuff. Flip, i i want i want you I want to give you an opportunity to you know mention where folks can find you, what specific offerings that you have, and anything else you'd like to share related to that. Yeah.
01:28:41
Speaker
So for me, it'd be easy, right? You can find me, ah you know, you can log into the website, www.firehousefreedom.com. It's there. Flip at firehousefreedom.com is also a way just to send something to me. um and And what do I do?
01:28:57
Speaker
I look at your entire program from the ground up and go, what what are you aligning yourselves to? Usually that's a mission and vision statement to it. But I think one of the unique things is that, look, and this is no diss to anybody.
01:29:16
Speaker
The 50-year fire chiefs who have these amazing stories about what they did are incredibly valuable. um I think that the the, not the hierarchy, but the legacy of the fire service in general, starting back from the volunteers and Ben Franklin to every single way that we've ever done it, that is important to keep going fire.
01:29:38
Speaker
right with the next generation is to is to teach that stuff. But what I what i see and what I really focus on is like this newest generation and the generational gap. The kind of, we were all fed all these leadership books and now we're we're kind of revolting against that people are showing up And asking for the why. When we were we were taught by Simon to ask for the why, and now we're kind of looking at it going, wait a second, I just need you to do what i what I say to do. And I go, okay, hold on. Motivations are different. So, you know, I do two-day classes. And I love those are my favorite. I will tell everybody I love to come in and just to see what you guys do, break things down for you. And and in general, Matt, like you said, well, why you were like, man, this will be interesting to have you on. It's a different perspective. Like I'm not beholden to the unions. I'm not like and I'll admit it.
01:30:30
Speaker
Right. And I'll admit to nobody's going to come in here and tell you that your city councilman who runs your budget, that you're going ever change anything by coming in. But what I think to your point is get a fresh look at stuff.
01:30:42
Speaker
I tell people all the time, one of three things I want to happen. One, I want you to least go, hmm, I never looked at it like that before. that's a different That's a different way, right? Very relatable. Two, I hope you have an aha moment, right? Those beautiful, like, oh, I get it now, right? If we can have that or three, and I think this is usually what happens. And I think good leaders have to do this. And as a dad, I definitely do.
01:31:04
Speaker
is planting a seed for later, right? Like I hope that when you walk out of those things in any way, whether that's, you know, a two day course, whether we do a six week online, or even do the mentorships of a 90 day or a six month, if you can do that, or even a keynote or or session, if you can walk away with one of those things, I never saw it like that.
01:31:24
Speaker
Man, I just had an aha moment. or Or in time, you the seed plants and all of a sudden, you're like, that's what Flip meant. That's what he was talking about. I think those are my three things to be able to help people kind of transition through this time where we have the leadership gaps, where we have a generationals, right? Our generationals have changed just because of of this thing, right? Like our phones... totally different. And so I really like those two that we talked, which is communication and clarification and then the accountability side and and really framework. So any of those things I love hearing from people. I talk to different departments every single day and and looking forward to get out and and seeing more and and bringing me in and and just you know having those honest conversations. I think that's
01:32:07
Speaker
That's something that I think you can you can definitely take into advantage of now. Nowadays, it's going, let's have these conversations and and learn. Because I think what we see every
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:32:16
Speaker
time, especially the two days, and i and again, I love them, is that you hear different stuff you've never heard before from your group, right? And you're like, oh, I never knew that about him or I didn't know that about her. And now all of a sudden, they become stronger as as a unit as they move forward.
01:32:31
Speaker
Man, that's an excellent point. And and as an instructor, even, and I do a little bit of adjunct instruction and yeah you learn to, like, I imagine that the learning experience that you get to, you have and and listening to other people, you know, what an opportunity that is too. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, that to that battalion chief, he, he made me go home and I went, well, you reflected, let me think on this a little bit. Let me read up on this. Maybe even even change your perspective a little bit. yeah Like we're all, you know,
01:32:57
Speaker
Again, you know you you may um you may deliver this kind of training, but you know we're all learning too. Again, we're trying to sharpen our skills. But I love that you said, you alluded to it there at the end, but you've said it previously too. It's like, take one thing away. I've always said the same thing. Like if I'm an organizational leader, leader in any capacity, and you want to make positive changes, right? I think everybody who steps in or crosses a threshold into a different position, you you should be, or in some capacity, motivated to make some kind of a ah lasting and positive change, make it better than what you found it. Right. Yeah. But I love, I love that, that approach, that idea of like, just, I always say throwing it all, I have all these ideas. Let me just throw them at the wall and see which one sticks. Right. yep
01:33:41
Speaker
Understanding that not all of them are going to stick. And if I could get one thing or two things to stick, then I've had, you know, I've left it better than I found it. I think that's a great approach in it. It's a, it's a mindset to, um, help you kind of endure,
01:33:57
Speaker
to endure the the challenges associated with trying to make change. Because a lot of changes, you know and Heifetz and Litsky talk about it in Leadership on the Line, if you haven't read that one, fantastic book. It's worth your time. And it could you know it could help in your developing lessons and in your conversations. Yeah. ah talk you talk They talk about adaptive change, those changes that take a long time and you know that require a shift in culture. um And so it's's's it's important to understand that you're not going to do those things in a week, in a month, or even a year, right? You have throw it at the wall and hopefully it sticks. And hopefully it sticks in time, even after you've gone away. Like you said, you plant the seed immediately.
01:34:37
Speaker
and maybe that plant you know grows after your time. So I do love that point. I wanted to highlight that. Yeah, no worries. I always tell people, like you can't I would call it the culture elephant, right? And in class, I'm like, how do you eat an elephant? And it's bite by bite. And I call them row, like results-orientated work environments. But if you can take, so to to your point, if you can take like small, people want culture. They want great culture. like I want a great culture here, right? like No chief wants to have a place I don't think that people are like, oh, shit, I have to go to work again today, right? You'd rather go, okay, I know I got to go to work because like, I wish we had off more. I wish, but man, at least when I go, we're, we're, we're lockstep because when it's not, that's the other thing. If you can't control the staffing, if you can't, because it's out of your control, just of whatever, to some degree, it's out of your control. Then you met, you better have the best place for people to work, to come to work, Right. The environment better be good. Everything kind of better roll because then then you at least have happy people. Right. Then they're at least happy knowing full well we can't control that. We're working on it or whatever. Right. Like that. That's just. And again, I say it bite by bite, little by little.
01:35:48
Speaker
It'll change over time. Yeah, great perspective to man the elephant analogies are are popular guys where did I read that I read that somewhere else. Oh, yeah, not about eating the elephant but steering the elephant.
01:35:58
Speaker
It could have been leadership on the line. Yeah. And, you know, i think that's a good another analogy with ah steering a culture like are you gonna, you know, how quick does it ship is another great analogy, right? Like, to steer the ship and people use that analogy all the time, but you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna turn that thing like a sports car, you know what mean? Like, it's, it's a slow, it's a slow ah turn. And so yeah, approaching it with that perspective can, can help you mentally navigate that as a leader and those challenges as leaders. So. I agree. Flip, I really appreciate your time, man. I love ah the wisdom that you dropped on us. Thank you sharing your your naval experience. Thank you for your service. Thank you, Matt. It was awesome to hear you know your perspectives. It's cool to get a Navy guy on here and a search and rescue guy at that, some paramedicine, corpsman background. So that was cool. And I appreciate you coming on and you know dropping everything you did on us. Thanks, Matt. It's been a great time, man. I appreciate
01:36:51
Speaker
My pleasure. Have a good one. Thank you.
01:36:55
Speaker
If you've enjoyed the conversation, can find this episode and many more on our website, firedog.us, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find us on social media, on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn at the Fire Dog Podcast. That is the Fire DAWG Podcast. This episode was supported by Roll Call Coins, telling stories of fire departments and teams through premium custom challenge coins. Learn more at rollcallcoins.com.
01:37:18
Speaker
It was also supported by AOS Services, helping fire departments stay mission ready with worldwide firefighting equipment compliance. Find more at aosservicesinc.com. If you like what you're hearing, make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
01:37:32
Speaker
And if you found value in this conversation, consider sharing it with a friend, a coworker, or someone around the firehouse. This is Matt Wilson with guest Flip Griffin. Until next time, stay safe.